Saudia to increase seat capacity for domestic flights from September

Published 26 Aug,2021 via Arab News - Economy RIYADH - Saudia, the Kingdom’s national airline, will increase the capacity on domestic flights by 52 percent from next Wednesday, September 1, following the Saudi aviation authority's decision to allow flights to use full seating capacity for domestic flights, the company said on Thursday.

The change will give Saudia a weekly capacity of more than 372,000 seats every week, up from the 245,000 capacity that it had with social distancing measures in place on its flights.

Saudia has been awarded the Diamond Classification by APEX, the international airline association, making it among the 10 safest airlines in the world, the company said.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday lifted a direct entry ban on expatriates from 20 countries, a measure that had been in place since February to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) welcomed yesterday the measures taken by Saudi Arabia to revive the aviation industry as it battles to save more than a quarter of a million related jobs in the Kingdom amid a downturn in travel due to the pandemic

In 2019, Saudi Arabia’s aviation sector supported 977,000 jobs and SR240 billion ($64 billion) of GDP, IATA said in a statement. The pandemic has put 361,000 of those jobs and SR85 billion of GDP at risk, while passenger demand is not expected to return to 2019 levels before 2024, it said.

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